2007 Fire Season Climate and Weather Forestry education Saving Forests The 2008 Fire Season The 2009 Fire Season
by admin
Choking Smoke from LA Fires Denied By Enviro Wackos
W.I.S.E. announced the web publication of Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen’s Impacts of California Wildfires on Climate and Forests: A Study of Seven Years of Wildfires (2001-2007), FCEM Report No. 3 last month [here].
The Executive Summary and link to the full text are now posted at the W.I.S.E. Colloquium: Forest and Fire Sciences [here]. The Forest Carbon And Emissions Model Reports No. 1 and 2 are [here].
Last week the SoCal media reported on FCEM Report No. 3:
Study: Greenhouse gases from wildfires damaging
By BEN GOAD, Riverside Press-Enterprise, September 3, 2009 [here]
Wildfires raging across California have belched out hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases since the beginning of the century, significantly adding to the problem of global warming, a new study has concluded.
State and federal officials have speculated for years that increasingly long and severe fire seasons can be partly attributed to the effects of climate change.
But the study, released by forest expert and author Thomas Bonnicksen, is novel in that it suggests the trend isn’t a product of global warming — it’s causing it. The assertions have met with a mixture of interest and skepticism.
Between 2001 and 2007, fires in California torched about 4 million acres and spewed 277 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Bonnicksen found.
That’s the equivalent of running all of California’s 14 million cars for about 3 1/2 years, according to the study.
“If we really are serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the first place to look is to reduce the severity and extent of wildfires,” Bonnicksen said Thursday. “We could make a greater impact in the short run than we could ever make by converting to hybrid vehicles.”
Much of the carbon dioxide emitted during fires is later absorbed back into the vegetation as it grows back. But Bonnicksen contends that fires destroy more than 100,000 acres of forest in California every year, leaving less vegetation to absorb the growing amounts of pollutants.
Bonnicksen’s calculations, he said, don’t involve any new science, but rather reflect a combination of previously published and accepted formulas relating to the density and types of vegetation in forests, the amount of carbon they store and the wildfires that have torn through the state in recent years.
He proposes a far more aggressive federal policy of thinning the nation’s forests, and harvesting the wood for a wide variety of products. He also favors more replanting programs after fires, since dead, decaying trees also emit greenhouse gases long after the smoke has cleared.
Unfortunately, the Dead Tree Press cannot report on Dr. Bonnicksen’s work without interviewing wacko detractors. It is an effort to provide “balance”, I suppose, but note that the Dead Tree Press almost never provides the kind of spiteful “balance” to other scientific studies that they do to Dr. Bonnicksen’s research. When Dr. Bonnicksen presents findings, the worst wacko elements are drawn out of the woodwork for slander and lies. It is truly pathetic:
Study challenged
Bonnicksen, a professor emeritus of Forest Science at Texas A&M University, has studied California’s forests for decades and testified before Congress on the subject of forest health.
The study expands on a report Bonnicksen released early last year that contained similar findings but was limited in scope to just a handful of fires.
The U.S. Forest Service has taken no stance on Bonnicksen’s work, since it wasn’t peer reviewed — the process of subjecting research to scrutiny from others in the field — before it was released, said Susan Conard, who recently retired from her position as national program leader for the agency’s Fire Ecology Research division.
“That’s basically the quality control for science,” Conard said Thursday.
Note that the FCEM has been peer reviewed by Dr. Bruce Krumland, consultant in statistical design and analysis, forest inventory, and modeling, Klaus Scott, Air Pollution Specialist, California Air Resources Board (CARB), Dr. Mark Nechodom, USDA Forest Service Sierra Nevada Research Center, Dr. Chris Dicus, Wildland Fire & Fuels Management, California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), Philip S. Aune, retired U.S. Forest Service Silviculturalist, and numerous other experts.
The data used in building the FCEM came from Martha Beninger, Applied Forest Management; James Ingram and Elaine Gee, Eldorado National Forest; Karen Jones, Tahoe National Forest; Rich Wade and David Harcus, Sierra Pacific Industries; Mike Aguilar, Mason, Bruce, & Girard; Keith Crummer, Plumas County Fire Safe Council; Ryan Tompkins, Plumas National Forest; Ike Riffel, Shasta Forest c/o W.M. Beaty & Associates, Inc.; the Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP), California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; Michael Landram, Regional Silviculturalist, U.S. Forest Service Region 5; Ralph Warbington, Section Head, Planning and Inventory, Ecosystem Planning Staff, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, and numerous published sources.
We refrain from any ad hominum attacks on Susan Conard. However, her assertions are not backed up by any scientific evidence. For a non-peer reviewed presentation by Dr. Conard, see [here]. You can make your own judgment regarding the quality of her work.
In addition, we note that the USFS Fire Ecology Research division has failed to prevent or mitigate a single fire in their entire existence. Their chief output seems to be requests for more money to do “integrated” research. However, when integrated research appears, as in this case, they criticize it for specious, ad hominem reasons. It is unclear what quality control mechanisms are in place at the USFS Fire Ecology Research division. It appears there are none.
By the way, an ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the person” or “argument against the person”) is a logically fallacious argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of a person advocating the premise.
An ad hominem logical fallacy has the basic form:
Person A makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Person A
Therefore claim X is false
Continuing with the media story:
In a written analysis of Bonnicksen’s 2008 study linking fires to climate change, Conard suggested that he was underestimating the amount of carbon absorbed by vegetation following a fire and thus overestimating the impact of fires on global warming.
“The paper clearly is written to support a particular point of view with regards to forest management, which somewhat detracts from its value as an unbiased analysis of the potential impacts of management activities,” she wrote.
That is ad hominem to a “T”. The “point of view” of the FCEM author is objectionable to Conard, therefore the statements he makes are wrong. She does not explain what that objectionable point of view is; she merely casts specious and vague aspersions about it, without addressing the substance of the work.
Conard’s written analysis was sponsored by and posted at the California Chaparral Institute, [here], Richard W. Halsey, Director. The CCI has for years displayed a vicious ad hominem attack page targeted at Dr. Bonnicksen, filled with slanders and lies [here].
Halsey, a self-professed chaparral “expert” without credentials, extols the virtues of “old-growth” chaparral and lobbies against any control or management of chaparral fuels. He is thus in part responsible for the devastating chaparral fires that plague Southern California and do $billions in damages every year.
Conard continues these slanders, and attacks Dr. Bonnicksen’s research for it’s funding source, the non-profit Forest Foundation of Auburn, California. Conard does not reveal her funding sources. It must be assumed that all of Conard’s work has been tainted by her funding sources, since she assumes that of others. That is, Conard believes the funding source dictates research findings, and that belief must have come from her own experience as a researcher. She “found” whatever she was paid to find, and so assumes that other researchers act in the same manner, without scientific integrity.
For the record, Dr. Bonnicken’s early (not later) forest carbon studies were sponsored by The Forest Foundation, a nonprofit group. Their website is [here] and the link has long been listed on the SOS Forests sidebar. They are a great organization, dedicated to saving forests. From their site:
The Forest Foundation is elevating key points in the forest management debate and building valuable relationships with government officials, educators, and community leaders. We bring forest science to today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders, and develop on-the-ground solutions to improve forest health throughout the state.
The Dead Tree Press article continues:
Tax records show that the California Forest Products Commission, an industry organization that promotes the harvesting of trees, was by far the foundation’s largest donor last year, contributing more than $383,000.
Bonnicksen said he parted ways with the group before the study was completed and that he has no ties to the industry.
“Nobody’s paying me to say anything,” Bonnicksen said.
The same cannot be said of Conrad and Halsey, although they fail to reveal their funding sources.
It is also a damning oversimplification to describe the California Forest Products Commission as “an industry organization that promotes the harvesting of trees,” particularly when that slant/spin comes from the Dead Tree Press.
It must be noted that journalist Ben Goad is a purveyor of, and makes his living selling, dead tree pulp with ink on it. It must also be noted that Conard, Halsey, and Goad all live in wood-framed houses made of, you guessed it, dead trees.
Conard drew a salary and benefits for years and now draws a pension from a federal land management agency that cuts trees. In fact, when the USFS fails to cut trees and allows fuels to build up, catastrophic megafires erupt that destroy forests, watersheds, habitat, homes, and public health and safety. The absence of responsible land management on the part of Conard’s benefactor agency can and does result in the untimely deaths of her former fellow federal employees and private citizens.
Her pooh-poohing of greenhouse gas emissions from forest fires is not completely understandable. Who paid her to say that? Why? What does her funding source have to gain from denying the obvious, that forest fires make smoke?
Dr. Bonnicksen is the father of restoration forestry. He is not a logger or a shill for any industry. He works to save forests, landscapes, and communities from catastrophic destruction by fire through the application of scientific, historically accurate, ecologically sensitive forest restoration techniques.
Halsey accuses Dr. Bonnicksen of “promoting the economic interests of the wood products industry.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Restoration forestry is very different from commercial tree farming. In the case of chaparral, there is no commercial chaparral logging. Restoring Southern California habitats to fire-safe oak savannas is not a commercial timber industry operation. Halsey is blowing smoke, in more ways than one.
Fortunately, nobody gives a scintilla of credence to Halsey or Conard. Their specious ad hominem attacks are easily seen for what they really are, wacko political extremism not motivated by open scientific inquiry or social responsibility.
After spinning the lies and unfounded accusations, journalist Ben Joad finally reports on what rational observers and responsible officials have to say about the Forest Carbon Emissions Model:
State officials charged with addressing global warming and monitoring pollution said more research can only help.
The California Air Resources Board’s mission is to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases with a focus on man-made sources. Maintaining a healthy forest is integral to that goal, board spokesman Dimitri Stanich said.
“We look at forests as a carbon sink. They have the means of capturing carbon,” he said. “We’re looking at the forest as a strategy to reduce our overall emissions.
The California Natural Resources Agency last month issued a draft plan that would require agencies to adapt their operations to account for global warming.
Climate change “is going to exacerbate the problems we already have,” said Anthony Brunello, the state’s deputy secretary for climate change and energy. “We need to have a coordinated response how to deal with that.”
The plan seeks to take a long-term view of the impacts of climate change and would incorporate science on greenhouse-gas emissions and fire trends, he said.
“That type of report is exactly the type of information we need to know,” Brunello said. “We have to know better which solutions will help reduce catastrophic wildfires.”
Indeed we do. Allowing chaparral fuels to build up for decades in the name of “old-growth” tick brush leads directly to devastating megafires. Most people, including community leaders, firefighters, residents, and scientists understand that very well. Most people are very concerned when megafires threaten homes, lives, and ecosystems and do $billions upon $billions in damages.
Dr. Bonnicksen’s Forest Carbon Emissions Model provides a tool for estimating the carbon combustion that results from severe fires. It is based on sound science. It has been thoroughly reviewed and is available at W.I.S.E. for your own personal edification and review. Naysaying and slanders from enviro wackos on the take from mysterious entities should not dissuade anyone from appreciating and utilizing the FCEM reports.
In 2006 Richard “Chaparral Guy” Halsey was part of a group that engineered a hateful letter, couched as a press release, to the LA Times attacking Dr. Bonnicksen personally. The signers were prize asses named Philip W. Rundel, Michael F. Allen, Norman L. Christensen, Jr., and Jon E. Keeley. Tricky Dick Halsey has run that venomous attack piece ever since on his abomination of a website.
The letter was so offensive, so demeaning, and so putrid that ten of the most accomplished and respected academic forest scientists in the U.S. felt compelled to issue an Open Letter in support of Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen [here].
Letter to the media
We are appalled at the attack on Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen by four individuals who are attempting to silence debate. Their attack is a violation of professional standards of conduct in science: the free exchange of ideas and collegiality among scholars.
Dr. Bonnicksen earned a Ph.D. in forest policy from the University of California at Berkeley and served as Department Head at Texas A&M University before being granted emeritus status in forest science in 2004. His research in forest science spans decades and has been published widely in peer-reviewed scientific journals, reports and books. His 2000 book, America’s Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery, documents 18,000 years of forest history and has received many excellent book reviews. He has assisted community leaders throughout California using science in understanding forestry issues and addressing those issues.
While we may agree or disagree with Dr. Bonnicksen’s views on any particular issue, we adamantly oppose any effort to stifle his contribution to the debate on proper management of our nation’s forests.
Sincerely,
Robert Becker, Ph.D.
Professor &; Director
Strom Thurmond Institute of Government & Public Affairs
Clemson UniversityJames Bowyer, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Dept. of Bio Products & Bio Systems Engineering
University of Minnesota
Director Responsible Materials Program
Dovetail Partners, Inc.John Helms, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management-Ecosystem Science
UC BerkeleyRobert G. Lee, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
College of Forest Resources, AR-10
University of WashingtonBill Libby, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Forest Economics
Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
College of Natural Resources
UC BerkeleyWilliam McKillop, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Forest Economics
Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
College of Natural Resources
UC BerkeleyChadwick Dearing Oliver, Ph.D.
Pinchot Professor of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and
Director, Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Yale UniversityScott E. Schlarbaum, Ph.D.
James R. Cox Professor
Department of Forestry, Wildlife & Fisheries
Institute of Agriculture
The University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleJohn Stuart, Ph.D.
Professor of Dendrology and Fire Ecology
Department of Forestry & Watershed Management
California State University, HumboldtGene Wood, Ph.D.
Wildlife Ecology/Conservation
Dept. of Forestry & Natural Resources
Clemson University
Dick “Old-Growth Chaparral” Halsey has never posted that Open Letter, nor issued any apology.
Susan G. Conard, despite a “career” in USFS research, has no significant research papers to her name. Her attack piece on Bonnicksen did not cite any of her own work, because there is none worth citing.
She wrote:
Bonnicksen’s methods for estimating fuel consumption, however, appear weak. He uses California Air Resources Board consumption values, which are likely to be overestimates.
Based on what? Her guesstimates? She gave no citation or evidence of any kind to support her assertion of weakness. She also wrote:
And there is considerable lack of detail on both assumptions and data sources. For example: was consumption estimated from prefire and postfire measurements? What were fuel moistures of the various fuels? What percentage of tree crowns was consumed? There are published models and methodology for developing these estimates; we wonder why the author did not use either the First Order Fire Effects Model or Consume 3.0, which are applicable to the Sierra Nevada (and other areas).
Then she trundled out the Consume 3.0 model, which surprisingly yield greater estimates of carbon emissions from the very same fires!!! Here are Conard’s numbers:
Comparison of CO2 predicted by Consume 3.0 for each fire using FCCS fuelbeds and estimated emissions for each fire in the Bonnicksen report. The Bonnicksen data include CO2, Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (NO2). Separate CO2 data are not given.
Wildfire . FCCS CO2 emissions (t/a) . FCEM CO2 emissions (t/a)
Angora …………..63 ……………………..46.2
Fountain ……….. 60 ……………………. 53.4
Star …………….. 89 ……………………. 76.7
Moonlight ………. 71 ……………………. 74.7
In every case but the Moonlight Fire, Conard’s CO2 emission estimates are greater! In the Moonlight Fire her estimate is 95% of Bonnicksen’s!
Is that weak? What in the blazes is Conard trying to say? That Bonnicksen’s “biased” analysis is wrong? When her cobbled together “unbiased” numbers are virtually the same or larger?
Conard wrote:
Any long-term analysis such as this should really include uptake (growth) and decomposition processes not just on the area burned but for the larger landscape in which the burn occurs.
Why? The FCEM is designed to calculate the emissions from forest fires, not some fanciful and undefined “larger landscape” that didn’t burn. Hey Conard, the Pacific Ocean didn’t burn; should we include it in the calculations of burned areas?
Conard chose to post her attack piece at Dick Halsey’s pro-holocaust hate site. Why? What’s her beef? After a worthless career as a nobody doing nothing but collecting a huge paycheck, what’s her main problem now? That somebody else made a model? She never did. She didn’t create Consume 3.0. Her name is not on it, nor are any of her non-existent papers cited in the references.
I don’t get it. What in the world compelled Conard to complain about Dr. Bonnicksen’s work on a pro-holocaust hate site?
One thing did come up in a Google search on Conard: she’s an acornista. She made a large campaign contribution to Obama. She took some of the $millions paid to her by the taxpayers for doing nothing and funneled it to her political champion. Is that what all this is about? Another ACORN/MoveOn slander attack? Why? Bonnicksen is not a politician or a partisan political person. He’s a forest scientist who wants to save forests. Is that some kind of political sin?
This is the Introduction to Protecting Communities and Saving Forests by Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen [here]. It is a perfect gem of an essay. Dr. Bonnicksen not only knows his subject, he writes with clarity and passion.
From Protecting Communities and Saving Forests: Solving the Wildfire Crisis Through Restoration Forestry by Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen Ph.D.
Introduction
I wrote this booklet because I love forests and want our forests to stand tall for generations. I also know something about forests, having studied them for more than 35 years and authored the definitive book on the history of our forests and the native people who lived in them, America’s Ancient Forests: From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery (John Wiley, 2000).
Perhaps it is because I have dedicated my professional life to understanding, conserving and restoring forests that I am alarmed at what we as a society are allowing to happen to forests in California and the nation. Misguided attempts to “save” our forests by leaving them alone and letting them burn are accelerating their decline and endangering thousands of people at the same time.
The problem is that many forests are too crowded with trees. Anyone with a trained eye or who knows forest history can see that. In forests throughout the Sierra Nevada, for instance, history tells us that roughly 50-70 trees stood per acre in a relatively open mosaic. Today 500-700 trees per acre often stand on public forestlands in the Sierra, upwards of 1,000 trees per acre in some areas.
Unnaturally dense forests provide fuel for unnaturally intense and large wildfires. More trees mean more fuel, which translates to bigger, hotter, more damaging fires. Between 2000 and 2006, more than 2 million California acres burned and California taxpayers doled out more than $1 billion to fight wildfires. Nationwide, 29 million acres burned from 2000-2005 at a cost of about $1 billion each year.
Today, 37 million California acres face high, very high or extreme fire threats – many filled with dead trees killed by bark beetles because there wasn’t enough water, nutrients, or sunlight to keep them healthy.
We are facing a wildfire and an ecological crisis that few people understand. I sincerely hope it will not be too late when we realize and correct what we have done.
The roots of a growing crisis
Part of today’s forest health and wildfire crisis can be traced to past fire suppression policies. By putting out forest fires for more than 100 years instead of letting them clear the forest of excess growth and debris, overgrowth now clogs forests, choking out certain plants and destroying wildlife habitat.
Preservationist policies that restrict public access and forest management in public forests also play a part in our forests’ decline. Such policies discount the concept of sustainable forestry and fail to recognize that humans have been a natural part of forests for at least 12,000 years. People have lived in and relied on forest resources like wood, game and clean water for just as long. Renewable resources hold the key to meeting the needs of a growing population and forests must be managed accordingly.
The underlying theme for many of the things causing forests to decline is an environmental disconnect – people are removed, or disconnected from the land that feeds and shelters them. Without a connection to forests or an understanding of how natural resources become the comfortable homes, tables, and other products we use every day, it’s easy to subscribe to myths about forests and inflict great harm unintentionally.
Native people were well connected to the land and managed forests for thousands of years to serve their needs. In the process, they gave us the magnificent forests that everyone treasures and wishes we had again.
The seeds of a solution
Restoration forestry aims to bridge the environmental disconnect, reacquaint people with their forests and restore forests to their historic grandeur. Using history as a guide and modern science as its primary tool, restoration forestry acknowledges the many values people expect from forests, such as the need to keep forests biologically diverse and productive, and the importance of ensuring the safety of forest communities. It addresses the economic realities, ecological challenges and social demands of making forests great again.
Restoration forestry will create beautiful, natural forests, and encourage productive use of resources that might otherwise go up in smoke. It sets forth a feasible way to provide abundant wildlife habitat, safe communities, clean air, sustainable energy, greenhouse gas storage to help address global warming and a dependable source of wood products. At the same time, it returns to the landscape forests that look and function much like they did hundreds of years ago.
Now, you tell me. Why is the Bizzaro Extreme Left all up in arms over Bonnicksen’s “point of view”?
In my opinion, it’s because the Bizzaro Extreme Left wants forests, landscapes, cities, indeed all of America to burn in raging holocausts. They hate America, they hate Americans, and they want to destroy this country in the most violent and murderous ways possible.
Is there some other explanation for their actions and words?
Please, you tell me. What motivates the holocausters?
I mean it. What’s their trip?
Is the Far Left’s contention that forest fires don’t emit CO2? Where did they get that idea? What do they think combustion is? Are they blind to the smoke?
Or that SoCal should be subjected to holocausts every year? Why? The LA Times made a big deal out of fire retardant dropped from air tankers last year. Bettina Boxall wrote a hit piece targeting aerial firefighting. She won a Pulitzer Prize for it. Is it still their position that fires should not be fought with airplanes? Would they rather burn up?
It is the Far Left’s position that nothing should be done to prevent fuel build up, so that fires are bigger, more severe, more destructive. When thousands of homes were destroyed and dozens of people were killed in the Cedar Fire (2003), what did the Far Left recommend as a solution? Let’s all sit on our asses, do nothing, and hope it happens again?
Bonnicksen and others, such as myself, recommend restoration forestry — making the landscape more fire resilient so that fires are less severe, less destructive, and the environment less damaged by catastrophic fires. What’s so objectionable about that?
I find the Far Left’s positions on damn near everything to be supportive of destruction and death. Why are they that way? What is so attractive about killing off people, forests, etc.? And why do we elect such murderous kooks to public office? Why are our federal agencies so infected with death merchants who hate us and want to kill us? Why is that?
by Tallac
People like Susan Conard and Richard Halsey need to negate science and history in order to cope with the real world.
They may be PATHOLOGICAL: maladaptive behavior that is compulsive and unhealthy.
It is astounding that some think smoking over 150,000 acres in a matter of days in Southern California is actually good and natural.
The “benefits” of this burn, should they ever be published, would be interesting reading.
Typically and predictably, during the Station Fire politicians of every stripe have come out saying that “something should be done.” But then they don’t do anything.
The megafire crisis is 20 years old now. Four administrations have sat on their cans doing nothing. The new line of BS is “Leave Early or Stay and Defend”, coupled with No Touch fuel build up and arresting those who attempt to save their own homes.
That’s what killed 200 people in February in Australia, a lightly populated place. Now the idiocracy wants to roast a few million people in their own homes in SoCal, stoking the inferno with “old-growth” chaparral.
From Sun Valley to Lake Tahoe, Los Alamos to Malibu, the tax-and-stifle, tyranny-loving political elite desire mass death disasters as distractions from their unremitting corruption. It’s not class warfare, though; all economic classes are targeted for holocaust.
We live in interesting times. We are witness to the decline and fall of civilization and the headlong rush into the New Dark Ages. Mass hysteria, superstition, quack religions, self-inflicted disasters, and worldwide infanticide and hemoclysms are the hallmarks of the modern era. Humanity descends and devolves right before our eyes.
What that writer wrote looks AWFULLY familiar to the thread I put up on this website with Dr. Bonnicksen’s study, linked from right here!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115×206714
The thread was filled with all sorts of character asassination, uneasiness with his supposed links, talk about proper peer review and a general disregard for for the obvious facts that catastrophic wildfire smoke is very, VERY bad for our atmosphere.
The peer review discussion was particularly pointed, with those folks clamoring that Dr. Bonnicksen’s peer review wasn’t acceptable to them. I think they merely wanted to say that any peers other than their hand-picked, politically-approved and academically-stunted choices would be the only “scientists” who would suffice for “proper peer review”. Anyone else is automatically “tainted” if they have any link to a commercial venture. Of course, that includes the Forest Service, and other governmental agencies. One poster brought up the idea of “closed peer review”, and my pleas for “open and transparent” review was conveniently ignored. I say, if you aren’t willing to put your name to a review by you, what good is it?!?!Otherwise, “respected and objective peer review” becomes an exclusive politcal club where members trade their reviews behind closed doors and pat each other on the back.
Even the “Chapparal Guy” came up in the discussion as someone’s “expert scientist”. Frankly, this kind of makes me feel like a star now, to have inspired a So-Cal writer to make it into a “Dead Tree Press” story. ;^)